Price Per Square Foot Stabilizes For Rentals In New York City; Harlem Sees Biggest Price Hike

Percentage of available studios rises; percentage of available one-bedrooms falls

NEW YORK, July 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The New York metro area saw no change to price per square foot for rentals overall since the close of the first quarter in 2012, according to RentJuice®, a Zillow® business and provider of lease marketing technology to thousands of real estate property managers and brokers. Average asking price inched up from $4,054 to $4,130 over the last quarter for the city as a whole.

Prices Jump in Harlem Neighborhoods

Over the last quarter, the city's average cost for space remained stable at $4.98 per square foot – exactly the same as at the close of the first quarter. The largest hike in price per square foot occurred uptown in Harlem. Neighborhoods such as Central Harlem, Harlem and Morningside all experienced 11 percent jumps in average price per square foot in the second quarter. Renters in Hamilton Heights, however, saw a 5 percent decrease in average price per square foot.

"Stabilization of rental prices indicates that demand has remained fairly constant, but also that property managers and landlords have found a sweet spot with asking rents – high, but not so high that units sit on the market for too long," said David Vivero, vice president of rentals at Zillow. "For neighborhoods seeing swings in price, changing inventory is often a main factor."

Vivero added, "RentJuice is helping real estate professionals streamline their efforts and gain visibility into what's working and what's not, so they can achieve a higher level of success."

Ample Areas for Singles or Pairs

Three in five (61%) apartment listings in New York are considered either a studio or a one-bedroom unit this quarter. At the end of the second quarter, 21 percent of available units were studios and 40 percent were one-bedrooms, compared to 18 percent and 44 percent, respectively, three months ago. Neighborhoods with a high percentage of studios and one-bedrooms in New York's boroughs include Kensington in Brooklyn (80%), Hunters Point in Queens (78%) and the Financial District in Manhattan (75%).

Configurations in Costly Neighborhoods

On the high end of the scale, renters in TriBeCa paid the most for their apartments this quarter – the neighborhood has an average asking rent of $10,365. Trailing TriBeCa, Central Park South boasts an average asking rent of $6,667, followed by Union Square at $6,482 and Battery Park at $6,169. Out of these high-end neighborhoods, TriBeCa has the most two-bedroom units (41.3%). Central Park South (44.7%), Union Square (37.3%) and Battery Park (38.5%) are good options if in search of a one-bedroom.

RentJuice is an online platform that allows property managers and landlords to instantly share their availabilities with partner companies for free to shorten vacancies and improve communication. It also offers an upgrade that provides agents, brokers and leasing offices a "virtual rental office," available from any browser, iPhone®, iPad® and Android™. To ease the increasingly competitive rental process for renters, RentJuice recently introduced online lease signing and the ability to fill out RentJuice's "Common Application" online once to prepopulate their personal information and quickly complete any real estate office's custom leasing-related form.